


If Wishes were Peacocks

by SliceOSunshine



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, Bittersweet Ending, Body Horror, Depression, Enemies to Lovers, Falling In Love, Flirting, Ghost Shenanigans, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020, Horror Elements, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Murder, Mutilation, No Real Peacocks Were Harmed In The Making Of This Fic, No Smut, Panic Attacks, Spoilery Warning in End Author’s Note, omg they were roommates, processing loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:09:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26472397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SliceOSunshine/pseuds/SliceOSunshine
Summary: From the moment he met him, Harry knew that Draco Malfoy had terminally caught pretension from an early age. As it stood, judging by the ghost sitting at his kitchen table with the ankle of one leg resting on the knee of the other, arms crossed against his chest, and two ghostly baby peacocks fluttering around him, death had not managed to disinfect him of this affliction.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 23
Kudos: 96
Collections: H/D Hurt!Fest 2020





	If Wishes were Peacocks

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much to my wonderful betas [Harrypotterismyhorcrux](https://harrypotterismyhorcrux.tumblr.com/) and [Skeptiquewrites](https://skeptiquewrites.tumblr.com/) and to [Achangeinpriorities](https://achangeinpriorities.tumblr.com/) who was a sounding board for some of my ideas for this fic! Thank you to the mods of this fest who have done a great job and deserve all the kudos. And thank you to [Potteresque-ire](https://potteresque-ire.tumblr.com/) for the arresting prompt! I hope I've done it justice.
> 
> There is an omitted Warning Tag that I've listed in the End Note because it's a spoiler, and I've also gone more in depth for some of the other warning tags as well for those who may need it. Please do check it if any of the other warnings have given you slight pause.

From the moment he met him, Harry knew that Draco Malfoy had terminally caught pretension from an early age. As it stood, judging by the ghost sitting at his kitchen table with the ankle of one leg resting on the knee of the other, arms crossed against his chest, and two ghostly baby peacocks fluttering around him, death had not managed to disinfect him of this affliction. All Harry had wanted was a glass of milk from the fridge to pretend it would keep the nightmares from the War at bay, tricking himself into finally falling asleep, but like peace and solitude, rest was apparently too much to ask for.

Malfoy’s eyes had been scoping out the nooks and crannies of the kitchen, and he did not notice at first when Harry’s form darkened the kitchen threshold. However when he did see him, his shock took the form of the widening of his eyes and the uncrossing of his arms, resulting in the revelation of a third ghostly peachick nestled securely in the center of his chest. With a _peep,_ the peachick hopped down onto Malfoy’s lap, leaving a hole the size of Harry’s fist, if that fist were larger and crueler, where Malfoy’s heart should be.

“Potter?” His voice sounded like it ran through water before reaching Harry.

Harry had faced Dementors, Death Eaters, and Voldemort himself, his Gryffindor credentials well earned. So it was not a mark of cowardice from Harry when he spun on his heel and bolted back to his room, locking the door with every legal protection ward known to wizard-kind. No, Harry was just tired; now two months after Voldemort’s demise, he’d had his adventures and didn’t need any new nonsense thrust upon him.

Perhaps in his foolish hurry, Harry had forgotten to throw some spells at the floor or was in denial that Malfoy was a ghost now and didn’t need a door. Either way, the result was the same: Malfoy whispering “Potter” from behind Harry, and Harry nearly vacating his body.

Whipping around, back against the bedroom door, Harry aimed his wand right at Malfoy.

“Ha! It really _is_ you, Potty.” Ghost-Malfoy clapped his hands in delight, though only a whisper of sound reached Harry. As he floated there, the three little peachicks fluttered up through the floorboards as well, with one circling Draco’s ankles, the second traveling unwillingly towards the ceiling, and the third bopping about the room. 

“All right, sure. I’m Harry Potter, but I’m not sure you’re Draco Malfoy. Draco’s been missing for a month.”

“First name basis? Why, I should have died sooner!”

With a flick of his wand, Harry magicked the bedroom curtains aside and moonlight flooded into the room, piercing through Malfoy’s form like a kaleidoscope of monochrome. Malfoy’s ghostly pallor glowed brighter with the touch of light, throwing his features in stark relief. His robes were formal, but the long tears in the material hid that fact well. His hair lay on his head in mussed clumps, as though he’d rolled around in dirt or had a thousand sweaty hands run through the locks. Cuts marred his face and a shadow of a bruise lingered along his chin. 

Harry settled on focusing on his eyes, which still sparked with the life of malice, instead of the giant hole at the center of Malfoy’s chest that remained a dark void. “You’re really dead then? S’not some illusionary trick?”

“Sorry you didn’t do it yourself?” He brought his hands behind his back and stalked towards Harry. “I mean, you did give it a good go in Sixth Year.”

“Gave as good as you got. And I recall you escalating first.”

“Hmmm, still,” Draco said. “Never pinned you for Dark Magic usage, Saint Potter.”

“You know what? Nevermind that now. What, in the name of Merlin, are you doing in my flat?”

“Not obvious? Haunting you, of course, you dolt.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “No. Unless you bit it at this block of flats, I don’t see how you could be here at all. Aren’t ghosts confined to the area of their death?”

“Naturally.”

When it became clear Malfoy would add nothing more, Harry felt his right eye twitch. Then an idea struck him. “Wow, Draco. You died in the _sewers?”_

“...Excuse me?”

“No wonder it looks like you were mauled by Killer Croc. Should be grateful ghosts don’t carry smells, because the _stench_ on you would—”

“As if I’d ever be _near_ the London sewage system!”

“So you’re trying to claim your death was dignified?”

For the first time in their exchange, Draco appeared struck—his outer edges flickered and some of the light in his eyes faded.

Harry immediately sobered; nothing was really funny about this situation. The familiar banter had crafted a careless forgetting. “Sorry. That was over the—”

“No,” Malfoy said in that voice that sounded like it was drowned again. “No, it wasn’t a dignified death.”

“Right. Well, um...” Harry cast about for more to say, and his eyes caught the motion of the peachicks. “So what’s with the little...”

“Oh.” Malfoy blinked as though awakening from a dream. “They were with me when I— _we_ died. Followed me ever since. Although”—Malfoy spun around in a circle, looking about the room—“seems as though one got lost on our way here. There were four before.”

Harry felt uncomfortable at how sad Malfoy seemed at that and hated himself a little for feeling that way. “Where were you before? Maybe I can stop by and see if I can find it?” 

He brought three fingers up to his lips, contemplating, his eyes going shifty. “The Manor,” he finally replied.

“Bullshit.”

Malfoy’s gaze snapped to Harry.

“The Aurors searched the Manor and its grounds when you failed to appear for your Wizengamot hearing. They would’ve found you,” Harry said.

“Maybe. If they were searching for a body.”

Harry fought back a shudder; how could Malfoy be so blasé about his own passing? “Er, I mean, they would’ve definitely run into your ghost.”

“Tsk! Potter, do you really know nothing about ghosts? You’ve only lived with one as a House mascot for seven years.” At Harry’s blank look, Draco continued, “It takes time, after death, for a ghost to pull enough energy from the world around us to develop visibility to the living. For the first several weeks, we are nothing but a mere gust of wind, a cold draft of thought, clinging to a world no longer ours.”

While Harry hadn’t liked Malfoy when he was alive, this version of Malfoy unsettled him too much for him to pin down any single emotion. So instead he said, “That explains the baby peacocks, then. I remember seeing grown ones stalking your yard.”

“When would you have...? Oh.” Malfoy’s face morphed from confusion into a grimace. “Your war-time visit. Guess they would have had to march you up the drive; only family could Apparate directly inside. Family and—”

When Malfoy cut off with a dark expression, Harry finished for him: “Voldemort.”

Malfoy flinched like the word hit him.

“Come off it. The bastard’s gone—not even enough soul left for a ghost. I know _he_ didn’t do this to you.”

Instead of snapping back at him like Harry expected, Malfoy drew more into himself.

Sighing, Harry ran a hand through his hair and moved to sit on his bed. “Sorry,” he mumbled into his lap. “I’m being a prat about all this, but that’s because I don’t really know how to take it. Tell me—what would you do if your childhood rival showed up in your home with the news that he died?” And painfully, from the looks of it.

“Pop some bubbly?”

“If you died at the Manor, how are you here, Draco?”

“Don’t know, really.” He moved as though to sit next to Harry on the bed and floated just above the spread, hands twisting in his lap. “Just remember going for my nightly promenade and musing how much my afterlife was wasted, knowing I couldn’t pester you. I wanted to haunt your every moment so badly, I felt it more than the air whistling through me.”

“So, what? You _willed_ yourself here just to haunt me?”

A smirk grew on Malfoy’s face, devilish at the corners, and he leaned in toward Harry. “Why, yes, _Harry._ I’m saying exactly that.” 

And, true to his word, Malfoy did. For three months, Draco Malfoy made it his afterlife’s mission to annoy, agitate, and harass Harry in the sanctity of his own home. Harry would be trimming the petunias he was growing on the terrace ledge and nearly drop the shears on the unsuspecting crowd below because a ghostly chill followed a ghostly hand along his back. Harry would be peacefully showering, and Malfoy’s head would pop out of the wall to ask if the water was warm enough, his mere presence causing the temperature to turn frigid. Harry would prepare a plate of food for himself, and Malfoy would run his open mouth through it, telling Harry his “cooking was shite” and leaving the meal mould-encrusted. After a while, Harry stopped throwing out the moulding food, and instead cast a good _Scourgify_ and downed it instead. He blamed the Dursleys for his hearty stomach and Malfoy for all the rest.

The third month, Harry drew the line because he came home from Auror Training to find Malfoy hosting an illegal ghost gambling ring. Or, at least, Harry referred to it as illegal since the bastard was hosting it in _Harry’s_ flat without his permission and what they were betting _wouldn’t_ be legal if they had flesh and blood.

Four ghosts other than Malfoy and his peachicks sat at Harry’s kitchen table: one, a girl in a Victorian nightgown; another, a pirate with half a beard; third, a giraffe of a man who likely looked more alive as a ghost; and last, a figure that was more amorphous void than ghost. All with various, detached, ghostly body parts floating at the center of the table.

“—all bets now placed!” Malfoy was saying as Harry walked in. “Show your cards!”

“What the fuck,” Harry said.

Malfoy looked up. “Oh. Potter’s home. Say hello to my hauntee.”

“What the fuck,” Harry repeated to a chorus of ‘hellos’ and an inhuman shriek from the void-ghost.

“Manners, Potter.” Malfoy placed a hand across his chest, right above where one of the peachicks had nestled into his chest hole, like he was offended. “Say hello back.”

There were a number of things to say crowding at the tip of Harry’s tongue, but a greeting wasn’t one of them. Instead, Harry settled for: “Where the fuck did _they_ come from?!”

“Oh... around,” Malfoy said with a wave of his hand. At Harry’s seething look, Malfoy relented. “These fine fellows you see before you are much older ghosts than I am. They’ve been around so long that their original haunts have since been destroyed by time, construction, natural disasters, and the like. Untethered from a specific location, they’re free spirits, roaming about to haunt whomever they please.”

“Well, they’re not about to stay here. Out with you lot. I’ve already got enough ghosts to deal with.”

“Hey, now, Potter. Not so fast. We’re in the middle of our play—”

“I said, get out!” 

“Please,” Malfoy scoffed. “Stop acting as if you have any power over this situation. Now sod off; your bitching is ruining the mood.”

When his scolding failed to solicit a response from Harry, Malfoy glanced up with a smirk that only grew wider as he noted that Harry had pulled his wand from his pocket.

“What’re you going to do with—”

Harry raised his wand and waved it at the four new intruders, muttering the incantation under his breath. The effect was immediate: the four ghosts compacted into four floating balls of light which quickly expelled themselves through the kitchen wall, their discarded ghost body parts following close behind as though tugged along by strings.

“Wha—” Malfoy’s mouth hung open. “Where did they go?!”

“Far, _far_ away from here,” Harry said, pocketing his wand and sinking into the seat vacated by the void-ghost. Considering that ghost had freaked Harry out the most, he was doing a piss poor job of convincing himself his seating choice wasn’t a calculated move of dominance. 

“You... could’ve done that the whole time?” Malfoy’s voice was small, his jaw still slack. Or maybe it was unhinged a bit where that ghost-bruise brushed his jawline.

“Some ground rules are in order, I think,” Harry said. “First, I’d like to shower in pe—”

 _“Wait._ You could’ve done _that?_ The whole time? To me?”

Harry pointed at the small ghost body parts still floating atop the table. “Those yours?”

An echo of a scowl—still too blindsided to muster a real one, Harry supposed—flashed across Malfoy’s face, and he snatched them back to himself. He reconnected his left ring finger and his right ear, the parts merging back with his ghost body as though they had never been torn off. 

Harry wondered if he would see hairline seams if he ever dared look closer. 

When Malfoy bent down to reattach one of his big toes, he asked the floorboards, “Why put up with me?”

“Hmm... felt bad, I guess. About you being dead.”

Malfoy, still hunched over, glared up at him. “Pity me, Potter?”

“Didn’t have much else to offer.”

When Malfoy righted himself, he interlocked his fingers over the tabletop, his face a mask of stone. “So. Ground rules?”

Harry ticked them off, “No more bothering me in the shower. No misdeeds that could potentially cause harm to other people—like getting me to drop gardening shears on them from a height. No more ‘eating’ my food. Oh, and could you quit with the decay along the walls? I’d like to have guests of my own over at some point without them thinking I live with Mildew Maggots and Doxies.”

“Didn’t really notice that last one. Guess it comes with the territory of having ghosts constantly passing through them. Since I’m not doing that one on purpose, I can't really make that go away.” Malfoy shrugged. “But fine, I’ll stop with the shower visits—though, here, I thought you enjoyed our little shared showers.”

Harry ignored the leer Malfoy gave him.

“No bringing other people into the fun? I suppose I can cope with that. But, Potter, give up your cooking? Why, I’d die again without it!” He batted his lashes at Harry.

“You call it shite.”

“Yes. It reminds me to be grateful I’m dead so I don’t have to taste it in full.”

“Piss off.”

“Only if you make me.”

The challenge hung there, Harry surprised Malfoy would make it so soon. Instead of taking the bait, Harry said, “And no more... unexpected visitors.”

“Or you’ll ether them again. Yes, I’ve got the message loud and clear, Potty. Are we done here?”

“You have something else to do?”

“Oh, plenty!” Malfoy rose from his seat and started floating toward the ceiling. “Lots of plotting to do now that you’ve narrowed my haunting options. Lots of opportunities too. I wonder if I can somehow clog your sink and toilet.”

Harry tried not to snort at the idea. That sounded like poltergeist work, and no matter how annoying Malfoy’s presence had been thus far, he was no Peeves. Harry doubted Draco even possessed the kind of life energy required to have that sort of physical effect on the living world. Instead, he said, “So what was that whole gambling venture? Would the winner actually get to keep the body parts?”

Malfoy stalled his ascent with the top of his head brushing the concrete ceiling. “Sort of,” he hedged.

“Seriously? What on earth could you do, as a ghost, with excess body parts—of other ghosts?!”

With a sigh, Malfoy sank back down beside his chair, though refused to take it again. “It’s not really about _keeping_ the body parts, Potter. It’s about regrets.”

“How do you mean?”

Malfoy glared down at the table and moved his fingernails across it as though scratching at the grainwork. 

“Draco?”

“It’s a ghost thing. It’s not really for the living to understand.”

“Well, I’ve sort of died once already. Try me.”

Malfoy’s gaze snapped to Harry’s face, his eyes as sharp as when he was alive. 

Harry fought a chill. “Another time. I’ll tell you about that another time.”

After a while longer, Malfoy dropped his stare back to the work he pretended his fingers were doing. “I could never do this when I was alive. Mother hated the idea that I was marring a piece of history. She said restorative charms could only do so much work for so long before the wood was ruined beyond repair.” His nails worked faster at their incorporeal scraping.

“And ghost body parts would help you ruin my table?”

Sighing, Malfoy stilled. “There have long been rumors I’d heard about the Underground Ghost-Gambling Goblin Market. Besides other types of bargaining, a lot of wheeling and dealing regarding souls go on there. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Potter. Ghosts of every kind of magical creature exist, though humans seem to outnumber the rest of the lot combined.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Malfoy glared, but continued, “I can’t travel there for... obvious reasons, but I know enough about how one gambles on your regrets. You don’t win body parts; you win the removal of a regret, the losers at the table taking on regrets of the winner.” His hand moved absently over the hole where the peachick still rested, and it pecked at his fingers. “How else could Ravenclaw’s Grey Lady look so immaculate, having died such a violent death, whilst the Bloody Baron is covered in blood and chains like a stuck pig hanging in a slaughterhouse?” 

“...Or that one ghost being mostly a black void?” Harry guessed.

Snorting, Malfoy said, “Viscount Archibald III has quite the reputation for being horrendous at gambling and even more horrendous at being able to say no to a round. Who knows how much more he can take on before he becomes a Shade? One almost feels sorry for the bastard.”

Harry’s eyes narrowed. “But not sorry enough to not invite him.” 

“No. No, I suppose not.”

“Hang on, with you having only one regret, why in Merlin’s name would you risk taking on more?”

“Who says I only have one?”

Being as dignified a gentleman as Harry was, choking on his own spit could have gone worse.

“Night, Potter.” Malfoy’s expression was uncharacteristically soft as he drifted away while Harry scrambled to gather his thoughts. “Don’t worry. That won’t be happening again. You’re right in that it could only be a net loss for me in the end.”

Part of Harry had expected Malfoy to escalate his malignant behaviour in a haunting blitz after the bruising his ego took, so he had ferreted away anything of remote personal value to him at The Burrow. However, in the following months, Malfoy’s crusade against Harry seemed to crawl to a standstill, wherein he just started occupying space in Harry’s flat without being much of a bother. On the other hand, Harry’s moving of personal items to The Burrow led to a flurry of questions from the Weasleys wondering if he planned to sell his London flat and move in. Harry dismissed the prodding inquiries with the explanation of having “a pest problem.” 

While “Mellow Malfoy” meant that he could safely bring his items back into the flat without fear of repercussion, there was still one small—actually very big—problem. Mellowed-out Malfoy offered far more a depressing sight than Malicious Malfoy did, what with his aimless, listless floating about the rooms and the constant twitching of his hands—a tick not around when he had lived. Hell, the way Draco’s eyes would glance over Harry like he didn’t even see him chilled Harry worse than when Draco had been actively haunting him. 

The one time Draco did speak to Harry, it was a muttered “sorry” upon finding Harry attempting spell after useless spell to expunge the rot sinking into the flat’s walls. Receiving an unsolicited and demure apology from _Malfoy_ finally pushed Harry over the edge into talking to Ron and Hermione about the situation. When Hermione tried laying into him about keeping the fact he was being haunted by his boyhood rival a secret, Harry came back with the fact that she and Ron had been honeymooning around the world since the end of the War, only recently returning so that Ron could pick up Auror Training with Harry. And Harry hated being a nuisance.

The comforting section of the conversation had been going well after that until Hermione asked whether Harry had reported that Malfoy was no longer missing but dead. 

In a most dignified, eloquent manner, Harry said, “The Aurors would need a body first. One hasn’t turned up yet, and revealing Malfoy’s a ghost could put him in danger. I mean, I don’t want professional exorcists coming to my flat and scattering Malfoy’s essence across the plains of existence. I don’t want that on my conscience.” 

And then Ron asked, “Have you asked the git where his body is?” 

At Harry’s silence, Hermione said, “Oh, Harry. I know you’re attached to him—”

“I am not!”

“Are too,” Ron said. “Letting the sod mope about your home for over half a year.”

“Because I felt sorry for him!”

“I doubt that’s all it is, mate.”

In the following sullen silence from Harry, Hermione pressed the importance of Draco’s spirit finding peace. That Harry was being selfish for keeping him in a world he no longer belonged.

“Say, mate,” Ron said. “You know how in Auror Training, we’re being expected to pick up a case to try to solve? Why not do Malfoy’s? Sure, it’s a bit of cheating, being able to ask him directly about it, but two birds, eh?”

So, Harry consented, if only so that Malfoy might stop his skulking. Later in the week, Harry confronted him with the plan, and to Harry’s surprise, Malfoy agreed.

Ron arrived at the flat the next evening for the interviewing session with Malfoy, carrying the slim folder for Malfoy’s Missing Person’s case, and, predictably, Malfoy clammed up about the details surrounding his demise.

After twenty minutes of Malfoy skirting their questions and the three peachicks growing steadily more agitated, Ron huffed out, “How about you just tell us where your body is, and we’ll puzzle out the rest?”

“That’s not—” Malfoy stopped himself. “Ugh, I wish I could just go with you.”

“Well, you can’t—” Harry was saying. And then he blinked and found himself standing in a lush, overgrown garden, Ron and Draco by his side. “What the—”

“—Bloody hell?” Ron finished.

“Oh,” Draco said, looking around and flickering in and out in the evening sunlight. “I...”

Ron rounded on Draco. “What did you do? Where are we? I swear, if this has all been some kind of trick to hurt Harry...!”

But seeing the way Draco’s eyes jumped from one area of the garden to the next, the way his glow kept fading in and out, Harry doubted that it was Ron or him who should fear this place. He placed a hand on his best friend’s arm. “Ron, it’s fine. He’s done something like this before, I think. Remember? He didn’t die at my flat.”

“Great, a ghost that’s managed to retain some magical abilities? Only you, Harry,” Ron said. “And just ‘cause you’re soft on him doesn’t mean—”

“Malfoy?” Harry asked, stepping cautiously closer.

Draco’s twitching hands had found their way into his hair where he clutched at the ethereal strands, his head bowed.

“Draco?”

No response came from Malfoy who seemed lost in a world of his own. Harry crept nearer still, and almost jumped out of his skin when a ghost peachick hopped out from under Malfoy’s robe and hissed at him.

“Hey! Easy. I thought we were friends?” Harry told the peachick.

“Friends?” Malfoy lifted his head, and Harry took another startled step back in alarm. His voice had that same drowned quality to it again, and this time, the water streaming down Draco’s hair, face, hands, and the tips of his robes finally matched. His eyes had disappeared from their sockets, leaving round circles of black ink that stared right through Harry. The hole at the center of Malfoy’s chest bled black down his robe front, dislodging the peachick that had rested there. Fissures of light ran in seemingly random patterns where Draco’s skin showed, as though he were a porcelain doll that had fallen from its high shelf and found the ground to be unforgiving. He reached out a hand, its center hollowed out in black too. “...Harry?”

“I... I, uh.” Harry swallowed. “It’s—I know it’s not _okay,_ but Ron and I? We’re here with you. You’re not alone in this place.”

Malfoy let his hand drop. “Wasn’t alone then, too.”

“Who else was with you?” Ron asked, and Harry could have kissed him for the gentle tone he used.

“They found me. They found me here.” Draco gasped like he was sobbing and the water flowed faster off him. He choked out the names of three Death Eaters that had effectively disappeared around the same time Voldemort’s chances of winning vanished. Harry wasn’t surprised to hear Greyback among the names. “I was—I was—The baby peacocks. They’d hatched not long ago. They... gave me comfort during the war—with _him_ in the manor. Wasn't much of a secret as I thought, where I went when I slipped away. I led them here—to the babies. I—I—”

“Shh, it’s not your fault, Draco,” Harry said. “You’re not to blame for the evil actions from evil people.”

“They wanted to hurt _me_ and they did, but they also hurt them and how is _that_ not my fault?” 

“It’s just... not.” Harry had grown up with people telling him it wasn’t his fault his loved ones died because a madman wanted him dead, and he’d never been able to believe that. He never understood how it wasn’t his fault, but maybe if he did, he’d do better by Draco now. 

Draco shook his head and glanced away. “Wait. One... two—where’s...?”

Harry glanced around, his stomach sinking. He, too, only counted two peachicks fluttering about. Despite all his better judgement, Harry rushed to Draco’s side, crouching down beside him where the ghost had sunk to his knees. He moved his hands against the outline of Draco’s back, swallowing his cry against the biting cold radiating from the incorporeal spirit. “Hey, hey. It’s okay. It probably got left behind at the flat. You know, like last time you did some Ghost Disapparation. We’ll find it, okay?”

Several beats passed before Malfoy finally said, “Yeah, okay.”

“Good,” Ron said. He still stood in the same spot where he’d arrived, wand tapping in an awkward staccato against his leg. Harry had forgotten he was even there; the world had narrowed down to just him and Malfoy and Malfoy’s breaking expression. “Right, then. I don’t really think it’ll do us any good to stay here longer than we should. Malfoy, if you’d show us where...?”

Malfoy rose back up, appearing not altogether there.

As Harry positioned himself to do the same, his hand, braced against the ground, touched where Draco had been moments before. He nearly yanked his hand back in shock as he found the ground completely dry. Ice flooded Harry’s veins and caused his bones to ache at the realization that, dead as Draco was, the living world no longer felt the imprint of his soul. That some truth lay in the claim that Draco no longer belonged here.

Harry wiped the grass off his robes as he stood, now as eager to get this excursion over with as Ron.

Locating and gathering Draco’s remains took about half an hour. There wasn’t much left to find after months of decay, but the collecting process took time with the way the evidence was scattered about. Harry chose to believe it to be the work of squirrels or birds or raccoons rather than what the hairline fractures along Draco’s ghost form actually suggested. The absence of the original peachick left behind from Draco’s first jump from this place remained unsaid, but hung in the air like its own spectre.

Regardless, Harry felt more than ready to leave once their main goal had been accomplished. However, a new alarming dilemma became apparent as Ron and Harry prepared to Disapparate.

“Hang on, how’s Malfoy supposed to come with us?” Harry asked.

“Same way he arrived with us, I’d assume.” Ron shrugged. “Use his ghost powers.”

Malfoy tugged at his tattered left robe-sleeve. “I don’t know how I did it.”

“Bloody brilliant,” Ron said. “Guess that means we’re walking, then.”

That plan worked until they reached the Manor gates at the end of the drive where Malfoy’s form rippled as he tried to cross into the street, like a dog getting shocked by an electric collar.

“Fuck,” Harry and Malfoy swore simultaneously, but Malfoy more vehemently. His two peachicks _peep_ ed in agreement.

“Apparently, he can’t leave,” Ron said.

“Thank you, Weasley. I’m glad your Auror Training has sharpened your observation skills to a dull point,” Malfoy snapped.

“Shut up, Malfoy,” Harry and Ron said reflexively, without heat.

“C’mon, Harry.” Ron held up the bag of remains. “Got to get this to the Ministry for proper inspection.”

Before Harry could open his mouth, Malfoy was snarling from the gates, “So that’s it, then? Giving up after one little snag? You got what you came for, and you’re just going to leave me here?!”

Beneath the anger bringing new life to Malfoy’s features, Harry saw the roiling fear lurking in his eyes. He shut his own eyes against the sight, regretting that decision immediately as the memory of Malfoy staring at him through a bathroom mirror with the same expression etched itself on the back of his eyelids. Bloody buggering bastard.

“You’re saying that as if you haven’t been haunting Harry for months.” Ron crossed his arms. “Or as if we’re not going to get you some justice, despite you being a giant wanker.” 

“Like he’s complained! Potter could’ve rid himself of me whenever he fucking wanted!” He then turned his full attention to Harry, expression losing some of its hard edges. “Your magic. Potter, you could free me of this place.”

But Harry was already shaking his head, hating to watch the hope die on Draco’s face like he was murdering him anew. “I’m sorry, but the banishing magic doesn’t work like that. And besides, the nature of the magic isn’t... kind.”

“Fuck _kind._ I don’t want—I can’t—Don’t _leave me here,_ Harry.”

“I—I know, Draco. Believe me, I know.” He glanced at Ron, helpless, before turning back to Draco. “Are you sure you don’t know how you were able to—?”

“No.”

“Okay.” Nothing felt ‘okay.’ “Okay, I’ll come back.”

“Liar.”

“I will, I promise. Once Ron and I drop off the evidence, I’ll come back. Probably with Hermione.”

Hermione hadn’t been near Malfoy Manor since their Snatching and her subsequent torture at the hands of Bellatrix LeStrange. Harry felt the sin of the offer that was not his to make slither from the tip of his tongue down into his stomach where it writhed like a parasite.

But Malfoy seemed mollified, even as distrust lined his face. “Fine. Don’t be late, Potter.”

Between the time it took Harry and Ron to Apparate to the Ministry and actually deliver evidence of Draco Malfoy’s death to the Auror Department, Ron had tried nineteen times to convince Harry that Malfoy no longer being able to haunt his flat was a good thing. His reasoning included such gems as “he’s a prat, mate” and “have you _seen_ the mould on your walls” and “just saying, you look way thinner than when Voldemort was hunting us like a niffler after gold.” Surprisingly, none of these arguments moved Harry’s heart from the path he’d found himself on.

Ron, being the best of mates, recognized a battle long lost with a sigh and an “I’ll handle the questions from here” when they handed over the evidence and a swarm of Aurors gathered around them. Grateful, Harry snuck away to the main atrium and Flooed over to Hermione. In another testament to Harry’s bonds with his friends, Hermione understood the slew of garbled words that rushed out of Harry, and, together, they Apparated to the Manor’s wrought gates.

There, they found Malfoy pacing like a caged hippogriff—overly proud, yet dignified in agitation. He rounded on them as they stepped from the shadows. “Took you long enough, Po—oh. Hello, Granger.”

“Draco,” Hermione returned. “You should probably back up. Just because you’re a ghost doesn’t mean you’ll be safe from crossfire-magic. You have enough problems to worry about already, yes?”

Instead of an acerbic reply like Harry expected, Malfoy just gave her a tight nod and moved back against a hedge that lined the drive. By the flush in her cheeks, Harry surmised that Hermione was surprised too.

With vigor, she set into her spellwork, aiming at the drive’s threshold, the gates, the hedges, and the ground. Over the next hour and a half, Hermione tried a variety of charms, hexes, counter-curses, and jinxes in relative silence apart from occasionally requesting Draco to “try crossing now.” 

Forty-five minutes into the endeavor, Harry sat down on the pavement, merely watching Hermione going at it winding him. During one of the few breaks she took, Malfoy cautiously approached the gate.

“Not—ready—yet,” she gasped.

Draco shook his head, his hand rippling against the invisible barrier that kept him trapped. “I know.”

“Then what is it?” Her tone was guarded.

Malfoy, worryingly, didn’t answer right away, just pretended to scuff his shoe along in the dirt.

She sighed in frustration. “I haven’t got all night, so back up. I need room to—”

“Thank you.”

“Come again?”

“I was a prat in school—did more than devalue your intelligence. You didn’t have to be here, let alone do all this. So, thank you, Granger.”

Hermione looked away, her chest heaving once up and down. “Yes, well... Don’t thank me yet. You’re not free from this place.”

“I know. But the effort doesn’t go... unappreciated.”

Harry felt unexpected warmth burst to life in his chest. He supposed that the thanks would be as close to an apology as Hermione would get from her seven-year tormentor, which was more than most people got.

Hermione’s response came in the form of renewed vigor in her spells, but after three hours of failure, she had to call it a night. In the face of Hermione’s apologies, Draco granted them the mask of his nonchalance about the matter, claiming that he’d never expected the attempts to work. Muttering about finding his ‘lost baby,’ he vanished on the other side of the gate.

“I truly am sorry, Harry,” Hermione said into the stillness.

“I know, Hermione. Believe me, I know.”

“I’m sorry about his death too. And that you’ll both be trapped in a place that’s caused you so much pain.” At Harry’s startled look, she said, “Oh, please, Harry. You know I’m fully aware that you’re not going to leave him alone in there. Just, promise me you’ll sleep in your own bed at night and come back for the daytime?”

Harry replied indignantly with a strangled string of syllables. He was still trying to answer her when she grabbed his arm and Disapparated them away from that nightmare of a place.

The following weeks became a swirling storm of chaos that left little time to visit Draco on Manor grounds. Alongside the announcement of Draco’s death—the brutal details kept from the prying press—came the manhunt for Draco’s killers. Sure, the Ministry had been searching for the three Death Eaters in question before, but just as part of a long list of Death Eaters unaccounted for after the War. Now, though, they had evidence that these outlaws not only lived but still posed a danger to the citizenry.

Three weeks into the manhunt, Narcissa Malfoy returned to England from whatever hidey-hole she’d snuck off to when Voldemort’s reign fell apart. Aurors had to escort her raving form from Ministry premises, calling out for her son. Evidently, the Aurors couldn’t turn over Draco’s remains for family burial rites because they were needed for the upcoming case against his murderers once they were caught and taken into custody.

Fortunately, Narcissa’s return meant that vultures at the Ministry could no longer descend on the corpse of the Manor and divy it up to any interested party. Unfortunately, her return heralded a new challenge for Harry and Draco as she took up residence back at the Manor. Harry’s Felix Felicis-level luck ran out on his eighth secret visit since her coming home.

“—can’t believe it took me that long to realize you’d been bribing them,” Harry was saying two minutes before the world tilted on its axis again. 

“You’re sharper than Goyle or Crabbe, but not by much.” Draco floated beside Harry, his head hovering over Harry’s left shoulder, watching Harry scribble out the win-count on Draco’s side of the parchment. “Hey, now, I bribed them fair and square!”

“Fair and—!” Harry whipped his head around to face Draco, bringing them nose to nose. Almost like old times. “They’re _ghost_ Snidgets. You’re literally the only one _capable_ of bribing them.”

Draco had discovered shortly after his passing that his family hadn’t only trafficked in albino peacocks, but had helped sponsor—or perhaps run—Quidditch games in the game’s earlier stages of development. The flock of Golden Snidgets that resided deep in the garden were more than happy to put on a show in the moonlight. For the right price.

Evidently, they would also throw most games in Draco’s favour for a bonus as well.

“I’m already disadvantaged because I can’t fly without a broom—”

“And they agreed to keep within your reach—”

“—they go right through me, too, when I ‘catch’ them and—” Harry’s eyes widened. “Hang on, did I actually _catch_ them those other times but they pretended not to be caught?”

Draco’s guilty expression lasted as long as the silence did, broken by a soft rustling coming from the direction of the Manor.

“Mr. Potter?” a soft, thin voice called. “What are you doing trespassing on Malfoy grounds?”

Harry spun on his heel and bore witness to Narcissa Malfoy standing in all her evanescent elegance at the edge of the grove, her Slytherin-silver night robe wrapped around her and her left hand clutching the two ends closed at the throat. “I, er.” He looked around him; Draco had disappeared.

“As I understand it,” she stalked closer, “you were the one who found his remains here?”

Harry didn’t like the way the moonlight reflected in her eyes, like she was so empty inside that the light easily filled her up and pooled in her irises. Unbidden, he recalled how she had lied to a mass murderer solely to find her son, how she could be capable of anything with him ripped away from this world. He suppressed a shudder under her razor gaze. 

“I heard you talking,” she continued when it became evident Harry would not. “Did you come here to speak to Draco? I often do.”

“Uh. Um. Yeah.”

“You had quite an unfriendly acquaintance with my son, but I suppose I can imagine the... effect finding him in such a state would have.” She stopped before him, the added thinness in her face accentuating the unpleasant scrunch of her nose. Or maybe she thought Harry smelt fouler than when they’d met before. 

“A-absolutely. We didn’t get along, no, when he was alive.” Despite his better judgement, he maintained eye contact. “No one deserved to die like that.”

“I wasn't here. I should have been. Or maybe I should have pressed him harder to come with me when I left.”

“They probably would have gotten you too. He wouldn’t have liked that.”

“You’re right, Mr. Potter.” She looked off to the side. “I couldn’t have protected my son—I couldn’t even protect him from falling in with the Dark Lord. And still, he insisted on staying behind to pay for the mistakes grown-ups made.”

“That—I didn’t know that.” Or he hadn’t really given much thought as to why Malfoy hadn’t fled England like his mother when he’d found out Malfoy had died.

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t. In fact, most of society had written him off as having run away. Why else would it have taken so long to find his body on the grounds of his own home?” Her eyes were hard, her voice cold, and her expression rigid. “But, I should thank you—you and your companion. Ill-bred as you both are, you actually bothered to look for him.”

“Respectfully, Mrs. Malfoy,” Harry said from behind clenched teeth, “back-handed compliments aren’t compliments, and that kind of attitude is what started this whole mess in the first place. If you actually regret what happened with your son—not just his death, but even the involvement with a group like Voldemort’s, you’d work on ridding yourself of that thinking. Prove that your love for your son is greater than the hate that’s festered in you and your family for so long.”

“Regret... yes. There are many regrets when it comes to my Draco. Tell me you’ll do anything to track down his killers and have them face justice for what they’ve done. Tell me you’ll do that?”

“That’s not really in my hands anymore. The Auror Department is taking care of it. I’m just in training.”

“And how far have they come in their investigations? Are they any closer to finding those that killed my son?”

“I’m not privy to—” 

“A mother never asks a question she doesn’t already know the answer to.” She gave him a wan smile. “Despite your belief to the contrary, I was a good mother.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“You implied it well enough.” Narcissa walked past him. “Now where did you find him—my son’s body? Point it out to me.”

Harry didn’t have a cold enough heart to tell her the truth, so he pointed a little off to her left. “Around there.”

“Thank you.” She crouched down at the spot and caressed the grass like it was Draco’s hair. “I know you enough to know you’re here because his death doesn’t sit right with you, that, despite your differences, his murder is haunting your conscience. That you too would stop at nothing to see justice done.”

Her tone chilled him, as though her words pulled him into the hollowness in her eyes, and the empty void inside was frigid with the warmth of loving another person snuffed out.

With care and great precision, she removed three cloth bundles from her night-robe pocket and laid them out on the grass side by side. “For you, my sweet,” she whispered. Then she unraveled the bundles and revealed three Dark Marks.

Harry sucked in a sharp breath. “Are those...?”

“The Ministry is really quite incompetant, though perhaps that stems from their disinclination toward the usage of Dark Magic to do what needs to be done. Did you know, Mr. Potter, they hadn’t given me any of Draco’s remains for a proper burial?” Narcissa didn’t wait for Harry’s answer as she flicked her wand at the ground and three neat little holes sprung out. Another flick and the carved-out Marks flopped into their respective holes. “This will have to do, for now. Come.”

Harry hesitated a moment when Narcissa beckoned him over, but only for a moment. In the next, he was knelt beside Draco’s Mum as she whispered prayers and offered up her apologies to him under her breath. Caught up in the intimacy of it all, Harry may have said a few of his own.

When they had finished, Narcissa looked at him from the corner of her eyes. “Do you plan to turn me into the Ministry for what I’ve done?”

Swallowing, Harry mulled it over—the sheer insanity of the situation he’d all but brought on himself starting months prior. How Draco would feel at Harry arresting his mother. “No... I don’t think I will.” 

“Hmm,” Narcissa hummed, a small smirk on her face. When she finally stood and started her walk back toward the Manor, she stopped at the grove’s edge. “Mr. Potter?”

“Yes, Mrs. Malfoy?”

“Perhaps you would not make the best Auror after all.”

Harry looked back down at the three mini-graves just ahead of where he still crouched. “Yeah, perhaps not.”

He waited until the swish of her robes against the underbrush had all but vanished in the distance before speaking again into the silence. “It’s rude, you know, hiding from your mother like that.”

Draco re-materialized by Harry’s side, likely coming from just outside the grove’s other outer-edge. “You saw what she was like. If she knew I was like this—saw that I was a _ghost_ —it would destroy her. I’ve hurt her enough with all of this.”

“Did you hear what she said?”

“Enough of it. I—” he paused. “I held some resentment towards them, my parents. For what they did during the war. For what they raised me into. It was... nice, hearing her apologize, even if she only half understood why she should.”

“Fair.”

“She won’t get in trouble for...” His hand hovered over the three fresh dirt mounds.

“I honestly don’t know.”

Draco sighed. “I wish she could go far away from here, and live a normal, undisturbed life where the memories of what she had and who she’s lost didn’t torment her. If my mother could be at peace, that would make me happy. Coming back to England has only hurt her.”

Harry didn’t know whether peace would ever be possible for Narcissa after the fate that befell her son, or whether what she did to those that took him from her settled or fanned the flames in her heart. What he did know was that, upon walking into work the next day to inform the Auror Department he was quitting the training program, he encountered a flurry of chaos brought about by three bodies that had materialized in the Ministry atrium. Later, he found out from Ron that they were the bodies of the Death Eaters that the Auror Department had issued the manhunt for, but Harry had already suspected as much.

Narcissa Malfoy was also not to be found anywhere at the Malfoy estate, despite her recent return to England. 

The fact that his mother had gotten away should have cheered Draco up, however, the benefits of such news were offset by the disappearance of yet another one of Draco’s peachicks. Together, he and Harry scrounged the garden for it, while the last peachick dozed in Draco’s chest. Failing to uncover where the little thing could have wandered off too, a despondent Draco demanded Harry leave for home and allow him his solitary sulk. 

With how Draco’s mood seemed to spiral in the following days, Harry approached his best friends with a dangerous idea—a positively Gryffindorian idea.

“An utterly stupid, reckless idea,” Hermione muttered a week later as she toiled over her broiling cauldron. “Are you _sure_ you want to go through with this, Harry?”

“A little late to be raising that question, don’t you think, Hermione?” Ron asked from his position as Settee Spectator and Potions-Making Cheerleader. “I mean, you could have asked that from any point between Harry wondering if it’s possible, to you researching it, to you brewing the bloody thing.”

“Ah, but that’s where I got her, Ron.” Harry briefly paused in his job as Professional Pacer and Fretter. “Once the question was asked, Hermione _had_ to answer it. My perfect trap.”

“Yes, well.” Hermione flushed. “At least I _am_ asking, even if it is a little late into it.”

Harry walked up to her and laid a bracing hand on her arm. “I’m sure, Hermione. As long as it works as intended.”

“There’s the rub of it though, isn’t it? The potion might _not_ work as intended and even if it does, Astral Projection carries risks.” She stopped stirring and turned fully to face Harry. “I think it’s lovely, what you’re trying to do for Draco, but you need to ask yourself whether the worst case scenario is worth it all.”

“Hermione, I’ve lived most of my life with ‘the worst case scenario’ hanging over my head. Honestly, with Voldemort gone, this feels like a homecoming.”

“Funnily enough doesn’t make us feel better, mate,” Ron called from the couch.

“Look,” Harry said, swiping a hand through his hair. “Having been around his pompous, petulant arse for the last year has actually been fulfilling for me. In ways that I’d tried and failed at finding after Voldemort fell. I know you’re worried, but I think this’ll not only make Draco happy, but... I think it’ll make me happy too.”

“Two months, Harry,” Hermione said. “It had been only two months after the War that Malfoy came back into your life like this. That’s hardly enough time for someone dealing with the threat of being murdered for seven years to come to terms that they’re allowed to be at peace.”

“Well, he does. Make me feel at peace. As crazy as that sounds, I’m at peace with him.”

Hermione sighed while Ron made an exaggerated gagging sound in the background followed by a muffled “Though, good for you, mate—I guess.”

“As long as you’re sure...” Hermione gave a final counter-clockwise turn and the potion settled from midnight blue to cerulean with silver shot through. “The potion’s ready.”

“Excellent,” Harry said.

Together, the three of them Apparated to the gates and snuck into Malfoy Manor like they were precocious twelve-year olds again up to a spot of mischief. They chose the ballroom with tall windows overlooking the grounds and with furniture draped in white cloth as if affirming the manor was now a home only for ghosts. With care, Hermione selected the comfiest chaise lounge of the lot and, with Ron’s assistance, levitated it over to the windows. 

Ron ran a hand along its arched back and spared Harry a glance. “You sure, Harry?”

Harry walked over to him and drew him into a hug. “Yeah, I am.”

Hermione’s hair brushed against both of their faces as she joined in. “Regardless of how this goes, we promise to be here.”

“Thanks.”

After extracting himself from his friends’ embrace, Harry sat down on the chaise, taking in the sweeping gaze of the moon as the shifting clouds in the sky broadened its touch on the gardens. When Hermione handed Harry a vial of the cerulean liquid, he wondered over how his friends had only asked him if he was sure and not whether he was afraid. But perhaps, unlike the countless fans that asked for his autograph or fawned over the idea of him, they actually knew the answer. He spared them both a final glance before returning his focus to the sprawl of trees beyond the window and downed the whole vial in a single gulp. 

Harry never felt his head fall against the pillows of the lounge.

However, he did feel the roiling dizziness he associated with falling off a broom and plunging hundreds of feet to the Earth. Slamming into the ground, in this scenario, felt a lot like bursting out of an ocean for air after having been drowning for so long. This resurrection from the depths of life had Harry bolting up out of his skin. He gasped in air that no longer felt real in the most freeing of ways.

As he adjusted to a new weightlessness about him, he glanced around the ballroom, taking in the pale haze that coated every wall and piece of furniture and the hollow shadows that lurked in crevices he hadn’t noticed earlier. Harry blinked against the golden hue radiating off Ron and Hermione as they adjusted Harry’s prone body on the lounge. At first, he hadn’t recognized it as his body because of the dark shadows swirling around it, as though death was shocked to find a body empty of its host without express permission.

Harry finally brought his hands up before his face, his breath catching at the iridescence of his cerulean skin and the way it bled over into the silvery robes that now covered him. Wasting no more time, he jumped through the window, mildly surprised at the way the haze coating it tried to catch at him like an echo from true defenestration.

He tumbled through the air and stopped a hair’s breadth from the ground which now glittered about him as though covered in morning frost. Upon righting himself, he came face to face with the garden in much the same state as the grass. As he walked into the trees and shrubbery, he discovered that despite the fantastical shine from afar, the vegetation had a thin look to it, like cobwebs were stretched over the real deal underneath and Harry could just reach out to brush them away.

Experimentally, he ran his hands along the undergrowth, touching bushes and shrubs and tree bark. Swiping his hands through these things came with a similar mild resistance as when he flung himself through the window, and echoes of the livings’ essence clouded up behind his hands before realigning back into proper position. 

As Harry floated along in his search for Draco, he steadily became aware of creatures and sounds unfamiliar to him in Malfoy’s garden. Ghost birds trilled their screams from the canopy, deer thin as any Thestral galloped among the foliage, and insects without names hummed from leaves like the sound of falling rain. Sending a glance skyward revealed a variety of ghosts and ghouls traversing a highway of travel along the ley line bisecting Manor grounds. Beyond them, the stars were voids in an expanse of cloud-white.

Striking as the beauty around him was, Harry began to feel unnerved with how everything looked not like it should. He stopped moving and tried calling out for Draco. With the third attempt, he got a reply.

“Harry?” Just as ghostly as ever and with his last peachick tucked in his chest hole, Draco seemed more real than anything else Harry had seen thus far, floating several meters away.

“Draco!” Harry rushed to him and, unaccustomed to his new ghostly body, tackled him to the ground.

Fisting both hands into the front of Harry’s silver robes, Draco shoved him up, bright eyes scanning Harry’s face with growing panic. “Wha—Harry? What _happened_ to you? You didn’t...?”

“No.” Harry felt bad for the way he laughed, but not enough to stop. “No. It’s an Astral Projection potion. I got Hermione to research it for me. She’s really great, actually, at looking up and concocting illegal things if you ask nicely enough.”

Draco pulled himself out from under Harry, his eyes not leaving his face the entire time. “Whyever would you do that?”

“For you, of course! We’ve covered mostly all your final regrets, except we’ve never managed to get that Seekers’ game right. I mean, what, with you bribing the Snidgets and all. Now, though, them cheating for you is going to be just a bit harder.”

Draco kept blinking at him, as if the next time he opened his eyes, this vision of Harry would either be different or gone. “For magic like that... there has to be some consequences, Potter.”

“Hmm, well, there is a time limit.” Harry brought his arms behind his back and started circling Draco. “So, best we get to that Seekers’ game. _Tick tock,_ and all that.” 

Snorting, Draco muttered, “Only you...”

“What was that, Mr. Sulky Sad Ghost?”

“I said, I doubt whether you’d actually trust the outcome of an official match, wherein we’re both equals, to the Snidgets I so easily bribed before.”

“Yeah, now that you mention it, those birds sure are corrupt for dead creatures.”

“I wish we could play one out with an actual Golden Snitch, but I suppose you didn’t get one to astral project along with you?”

“No, I—” Both Harry and Draco gave startled cries as a blinding light emanated from Draco’s chest cavity. “What in Merlin’s name?”

“I—I don’t know, Potter! You sure your Astral Projection didn’t infect me with—” Draco cut off as the light died down and, instead of his last baby peachick, a ghostly Silver Snitch beat its wings against the edges of his chest hole. When he lifted a hand toward it, the little thing popped out and nestled itself into his palm. “Huh.”

“So _that’s_ what’s been happening to them!” Harry reached out a hand to touch the newly minted Silver Snitch, but Draco curled his fingers as though to shield the Snitch from another’s touch. 

Unbidden, a spark of suspicion rose within Harry. How long had Draco known about what the peachicks actually were? But as he took in the hollow horror on Draco’s face as he stared down at his palm, Harry recalled how distraught he’d been with each missing baby peacock. If Draco had known, he’d have never uttered the words “I wish.”

“You’ve felt guilty for so long over what happened to them, but Draco, they’ve been helping you this whole time! They’re trying to tell you it’s okay. It’s okay now. And, this is the last one—you must be close, so close, Draco.”

Draco looked up at Harry, some of the hairline fractures reappearing along his face. “What if I don’t want to be?”

Harry melted inside and could only wonder what soft expression was showing on his face just then. “That’s okay too. Let’s make it a game to remember, yeah?”

He was rewarded by a small smile from Draco. “Yeah. Right, then,” Draco said. “Ready to get your arse kicked, Potter?”

“Hah! Not even if you wished it, Malfoy.”

The devilish smirk from when Draco first informed Harry of his intent to haunt him reappeared. “Let’s get to it then.” And he released the Snitch which bolted up for the skies.

At first, Harry was alarmed the Snitch would head toward the ley line. It likely didn’t interact well with ghosts tied to a place since Draco had never opted to use the line for travel. However, these concerns proved to be unwarranted as the Snitch took a sharp turn away from the line when it cleared the treetops.

“Three,” Draco said.

“Two,” Harry called back.

“One,” they breathed. The two of them shot up from the ground at the same time and cleared the trees in a matter of seconds.

Harry took a vital few seconds to catch his breath before realizing he didn’t need to. Draco, already familiar with ghost-hood, had taken the lead.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Harry yelled and propelled himself forward. At this rate, their game would be over soon, with Draco making snatching grabs at the Snitch already.

Like it sensed Harry’s dismay, the Snitch took another sharp turn downwards and into the trees. Harry and Draco followed suit, the resulting chase leading to what felt like facefulls of cobwebs as they both ignored the existence of trees and bolted right through them.

After a while, the life residue started affecting Harry’s eyesight, and, by the retching coming from further ahead, it was affecting Draco in a similarly detrimental way. Fighting off the cloying sense of claustrophobia, Harry floated back above the trees again, trying to search out his prey.

Draco had the same idea because he rose above the trees moments later, a scowl reminiscent of their school days twisting the joy off his face.

“What’s the matter, Malfoy?” Harry called out to him. “Ghost trees swipe your sense of humor?”

“Bugger off, Potter. I’m winning this, you’ll see.”

“Hah! Not yet, you aren’t.” But neither would Harry if he didn’t spot the Silver Snitch soon, and the gauzy haze from running through the trees had not yet left his eyesight, causing everything to appear fuzzy at the edges. Or maybe he needed ghost glasses.

The two of them circled around the treetops on different ends of the Manor gardens, hawks hunting any halos of light from the heather below.

True to form, this Snitch wanted a show, and thus revealed itself by rocketing upward right at the epicenter of the circle Harry and Draco made stalking above the gardens. And up it kept climbing as Harry and Draco rushed after it, creating concave curves of ascent for them both.

Unsurprisingly, Harry and Draco’s fists closed over the Snitch at the same time, their fingers sliding together in an awkward embrace. Their combined momentum from opposite directions sent them spinning like a merry-go-round with their joint hands acting as the grounding point for motion.

The childish urge to call out “it’s mine!” died on Harry’s lips as he locked eyes with Draco’s overbright ones.

Silver wings beat against their joined hands as Draco breathed out, “I’ve finally caught you, Harry.”

And everything was suddenly so terrible because this game was meant to cheer Draco up, but he looked so _sad._

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked as they began their long freefall back to Earth. “This was supposed to be your last regret. Should I have let you win? Did I do this all wrong?”

“No, you didn’t.” The wind whistled through them, almost drowning out Draco’s words. “And no, it wasn’t.”

“What?” Harry shouted, afraid Draco couldn’t hear him, afraid to look away because every second with him counted.

“Harry.” Draco’s tone was so soft, it was a wonder Harry heard him at all. “I’ve always wanted to hold your hand. And no wishes on peacocks gave that to me— _y_ _ou_ did. In all your bull-headed, heroic, Gryffindor glory, you did. Merlin, it’s been so long since I’ve touched another _person._ I’m glad it was you.”

Harry felt tears gather at the edges of his eyes, and he tightened his grip in Draco’s as the ground raced up to meet them, shattering their perfect, crystalline moment of harmony.

When they landed, Draco cleared his throat, shuffled his feet, and started pulling his hand away. Having none of that, Harry leveraged his hold on Draco’s hand to yank him closer.

Truthfully, Harry had been aiming for a hug. What he got was a wide-eyed Draco locking lips with an equally startled Harry.Their shock lasted mere seconds while their kiss lasted much longer, both of them surrendering to the embrace of the other—a surrender far more gentle and kind than the surrendering of their souls from their bodies.

Draco pulled back first, eyes alight like _Lumos_ and his breath kissing the sides of Harry’s face. He also loosened his hold on Harry’s hand enough that the Snitch slid from their fingers, disintegrating into a cascade of silvery magic that swirled up and into Draco’s chest and pulsed once before settling and sealing up the hole there.

Cautiously, Draco probed at the spot, wonder flickering across his face as his chest didn’t give way to his ministrations. “Thank you,” he said into the stillness around them. “Thank you, Harry.”

Harry gave a short laugh. “Wasn’t all me. I mean, you gave as good as you got.”

But even as Harry joked, he felt the way the ghostly world around him rippled. He watched as a Veil right from the Department of Mysteries stitched itself together between two trees behind Draco as if to say _Time’s up._

Likewise, a painful sensation started in his naval, a calling for his astral form to return to his body.

Draco rubbed at where his gaping wound had been like the spot pained him now. “It’s time for me to go,” he rasped. “I don’t want to go.”

Snatching back up the hand that was incessantly massaging Draco’s chest, Harry said, “I know, but I’ll go with you. That way you don’t have to be afraid.”

“What? No! Your friends—”

“Knew this was a possibility when I went under. They’ll be sad, but they’ll understand. They’ll know I’m happy because you make me happy.”

“But you have your whole life ahead of you! Fuck, Potter, you survived the Dark Lord. Don’t tell me you won’t survive me.”

Harry shook his head and walked into Draco’s space, catching his other hand that was fluttering about in a nervous gesture. “I’ve run from death for a long time, outpacing it more than anyone really has a right to. Remember how I mentioned that before? Technically, Voldemort killed me with that second Killing Curse in the Forbidden Forest, only I traded the death of part of his soul for a return to life for mine. Death is but an old friend of mine who was quite kind the last time we met.”

Draco’s mouth opened and closed, his pretension seemingly abandoning him at last. “Yet ending your life as you know it for something unknown—something unspeakably dangerous...”

“It’s a little scary, losing what I’ve come to know and appreciate. And to trade it in for something so dark and unknown and, perhaps, terrible is frightening.” Harry shivered. “But that’s what’s so good about having you here with me. I won’t be alone and you won’t be alone. So whatever uncertain fate awaits us from beyond the Veil, we can face it together, yeah?”

“You’re _you,_ Potter. You out of everyone is meant to last, to survive. Just the thought of damning you to my fate—”

“Nothing in life lasts forever. Not countries, not kings; not hope, not freedom; not loss, not fear. Not Harry Potter.” Harry snorted. “But perhaps the bonds we form with other people make the comings and the goings more worthwhile.”

“You’ve made my afterlife worthwhile,” Draco said like Harry’s words ripped it out of him.

“Good.” Harry smiled. “You can make it up to me by making _my_ afterlife worthwhile.”

“Merlin, bugger off, you prat.”

“Only if we bugger off together.”

“You’re going to be like this the whole time, aren’t you?” Draco asked as they floated towards the Veil.

“Like what?”

“Insufferable.”

“Oh, darling.” Harry batted his lashes at Draco. “I’ll be downright as wicked as you wish.”

Their laughter echoed around the trees even after they crossed through the Veil, hand-in-hand, like a memory giving its last haunting whispers before quietly fading away.

**Author's Note:**

> Omitted Warning Tag: Suicide (Technically)
> 
> Body Horror: Temporary Removal of (Ghost) Limbs, Implied Mutilation, Descriptions of Draco's Ghost form that Parallels the Way He Died (Think in terms of Nearly-Headless Nick/Corpse-like Descriptions) including--"hole in Draco's chest," allusions to drowning, allusions to dismemberment, and one brief instance where his eyes turn black. Also, some creepy descriptions of Narcissa, but she's not dead or injured or anything.
> 
> Animal Death: allusions to the death of the ghost baby peacocks mentioned in the summary, and they technically 'die' again. mentions of other ghost creatures
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> \--
> 
> Remember to leave some love for the creator if you can! Come reblog this work and view others from this fest [HERE](https://hd-hurtfest.tumblr.com/) on the H/D Hurt!Fest tumblr page!


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